Want Your Flight to Arrive on Time? Fly Early in the Morning
A new study looked at seven million flights to figure out when you're most likely to get delayed. And if you want to land on time book flights that arrive in the morning, not at night.
Overall, about 80% of domestic flights arrive on time, meaning no more than 15 minutes later than they're supposed to.
But early morning flights get delayed a lot less often than evening flights do.
90% of flights that are scheduled to arrive between 7:00 and 8:00 AM get there on time. That's the best time to fly. Then it steadily drops throughout the day.
Between 8:00 and 9:00 AM, it's 89%... 9:00 and 10:00 AM, 88%... around noon, it's 85%... and by early evening, it's in the mid-70's.
The worst arrival time is anywhere between 8:00 and 11:00 PM when only 73% of flights arrive on time.
So why does this happen? Well, the reason is pretty simple.
Airlines basically start with a clean slate each day, and most of their planes are where they're supposed to be. But as more and more flights have issues, it snowballs. And if one flight shows up late, the next one probably will too.
Read more at TPG.